Nigeria may witness a bigger version of the #EndSARS protests if no concrete legislative frameworks and legal mechanisms are taken to bring about a special crimes court to try erring police and security operatives who deploy torture and extrajudicial execution of citizens in custodial facilities or elsewhere.
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) stated this in a statement yesterday where it lamented that for months the judicial panels on the #EndSARS # panels have sat endlessly without achieving any effective closure to the thousands of cases of police extrajudicial executions.
It also said it had been business-as-usual with increasing cases of police brutality and killings being recorded with no end in sight.
Speaking against the backdrop of massive allegations of increasing use of crude policing tactics across the country, HURIWA expressed bitterness that the Police Service Commission (PSC) has become a “colossal failure” alleging it was only just existing as a ‘cash cow’ to pay allowances to politically exposed friends of the powers-that-be.
“It is such a sad episode to notice that extralegal killings have assumed a pastime for rogue security operatives and especially the police and this ugly social phenomenon has continued only because impunity and lawlessness have endangered professionalism and discipline in the Nigeria Police Force even with an institution like the Police Service Commission set up to instil discipline on police officers up to the rank of deputy Inspector General of Police.”
HURIWA specifically condemned the police over the recent illegal execution of the 18-year old girl Monsurat Ojuade in Ijeshatedo, Surulere Lagos by a police operative.
It condemned the police for throwing into mourning, the family of the girl who was allegedly killed by a team of detectives from the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos last Friday.
The rights group reminded the IGP that the family is crying for justice and asking Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and top echelon of the force to ensure their daughter does not die in vain.
Another EndSARS protests coming soon, HURIWA warns
